PROJECT PLANNING

Location

We’ll be meeting at 4pm in the Cybernetics Library at the Prime Produce Apprentice Cooperative, at 424 West 54th Street, between 9th and 10th Ave’s, in Manhattan. 

Agenda

This week we’ll meet to begin thinking about potential formats for our final collaborative project. We’ll draw inspiration from the Cybernetics Library — its collection and its operational values — and we’ll be in conversation with the Library’s David Hecht and Chaski Knowles. While this conversation is, again, taking place a bit earlier in the “semester” than I’d initially hoped, we do need to start thinking about concrete formats relatively early — both so I can find appropriate design and technical advisors for the project, who can then meet with us during our final class of the fall; and so we can start collecting documentation and asking questions in the field that will support our work on this project. 

We’ll consider what values should define our project, what purposes we want this project to serve, to whom we’re accountable, who we want to honor and serve, what vibes we want to cultivate, and what formats would allow us to do all these things.  

To Prepare for This Week

• First, introduce yourself to the Cybernetics Library and Prime Produce! While we’re on-site, Emergent Works will be meeting in an adjacent space; please meet them, too! 
• Now, please contemplate the questions above and come prepared to discuss! 
• Let’s explore just a couple precedents for inspiration; we’ll see dozens more in the Cybernetics Library. First, read Edward M. Gómez, “Blueprint for Counter Education: Republished and Still Daring After All These Years,” Hyperallergic (May 14, 2016), which extols Inventory Press’s reissue of Maurice Stein and Larry Miller’s Blueprint for Counter-Education (Doubleday, 1970; Inventory Press, 2016); and watch this “unboxing” video of the publication. I have a copy I’d love to bring in, provided I can find it amidst my boxes of books!
• Now, explore Angela Chen’s After School (Skylight Books, 2026); and read Karen Gu on Chen’s book in the Brooklyn Rail (September 2026). And just in case you’d like to read more about “Chinese school,” see Yung-Hsing Wu, “Culture Clubs,” Aydelotte Foundation (February 22, 2022).   
• If you have any materials in your own collections that might inspire our class project, please bring them to share! Or, if you have some references that aren’t materially share-able, please post a little profile, with relevant links, to this slide deck.